


A pitch black world

by thisthattother



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, au where jack doesn't stop pitch defeat the guardians, but also doesn't join forces with him either, kind of dark i guess?, spiritual world development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:19:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisthattother/pseuds/thisthattother
Summary: Imagine a world where Jack doesn't fight Pitch. Where he doesn't recover his lost memories. Where he doesn't stand between Jamie Bennett and the Nightmare King. A world where the Guardians are gone, and fear reigns supreme. This is that world.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I accidentally used a completely different style of writing to normal, so I hope it isn't completely incoherent. As much as I love AUs where Jack joins Pitch, they always feel kind of OOC to me, so, despite this maybe not being much more IC, this is my attempt to do that. No beta, so sorry for any mistakes or confusions. Enjoy!

Jack is angry and bitter, of course he is. Three hundred years of isolation, and then he thought he finally had a reason not to be alone, but instead the Guardians turn on him at the first sign of trouble. He wants to blame Pitch, he really does, but he can’t help but feel like the Nightmare King is at least a little bit right. Why would they have turned on him so easily, unless they already had their doubts in him?

So when Pitch makes his offer, Jack still turns him down – and doesn’t look up to see Pitch’s face fall – because he’s still the same person at heart. But then he tells Pitch that he won’t stand in his way either, and walks away. Pitch, who had some ideas of making certain of this, finds his way blocked by an impenetrable blizzard. He shrugs and carries on with the plan. The cages in his lair gain another tooth fairy, for the time being at least.

Jack still can’t throw away the capsule of memories, but without Baby Tooth’s help, he can’t open them either. Eventually he’ll just forget altogether about trying to access them, but for now they remain hidden away while he isolates himself at the South Pole.

Outside of his solitude, the world is changing. The Guardians are missing, presumed dead, assuming they haven’t just abandoned the world as the more pessimistic spirits believe. Confident in his victory, Pitch has pulled back a bit. Sure, nobody dreams anymore, but they’re not suffering from constant, crippling nightmares either.

The kinds of creatures that prey on fear begin creeping out of the ether. For reasons no human can explain, none of them will go anywhere alone at night anymore. Even the very human fears of the night have found themselves scared off the streets by these creatures, but the disappearance of the physical fears are only a small consolation when the spiritual ones still persist as a worry in the back of every human’s mind.

Adults are no longer so quick to dismiss the creations of children’s imaginations. Yes, the reassurance that there is no monster under the bed comes just as often, but suddenly the adults don’t seem quite so sure anymore.

Time passes, the new world settles, and, eventually, Jack Frost returns from his self-exile.

Not to Burgess. He’ll never go back there again. The world’s changed now, and if Jack is going to change with it, he can’t look back. And maybe – just maybe – he’s afraid to see what he’s done to the town he loved so much, to see what is and isn’t there anymore because of the choice he made.

So a new town then. Maybe even a whole new country.

The first thing he notices is that children are still playing in the streets. He’s not sure why that surprises him – maybe he expected Pitch to leave the whole world cowering in their homes forever – but children are still children, and fun will always be an essential aspect of their lives.

Their laughter fuels something in Jack, even if he doesn’t realise it, and he finds himself laughing with them, darting forward to join in with their games.

But in this new world, ice and cold where there was none before is far from a game. Jack’s tricks may have been a bit of fun before, but he’s been gone too long, and now all they do is send the children running for their homes.

Jack moves on, all too familiar with the feeling of rejection, but it happens again in the next town, and the next town, and the next. He starts to pay attention, learning what the world has become in his absence, and in the next town, he stays.

The children run away the first time, and the second, and the third, and they’re still running on the fourth, but this time, one returns. Because Pitch may be strong, but so is Jack, and fun will always be more powerful than fear, given enough time and persistence.

The child prods at the ice with her shoe. Jack hardly dares breathe, but she still runs and hides before a fence. When nothing happens, though, she comes out and prods it again. One foot slides onto the ice, then the other, and then the first foot slides forward again. Carefully, delicately, the child begins sliding around on the ice, gradually increasing her speed until, inevitably, she goes head over heels and falls flat on her face. Jack holds his breath, waiting for the tears and rejection, but the child just laughs and gets back up.

The next day, there’s two of them.

By the end of the week, Jack has decided that the children of this town are under his protection. They still fear the creatures of the night, of course, there’s nothing he can do about that yet, but they’re no longer in any real danger from them, for as long as Jack stays near, and in the meantime, Jack fills their days with as much fun as he’s capable of.

He doesn’t notice that he seems to grow stronger with each day that passes. He does notice when a child seems to stop and stare right at him, but three hundred years of unfounded hopes have encouraged him to dismiss this as a fluke.

Other spirits begin to take notice. Creatures of the night rarely venture too close to Jack’s town anymore, but not all spirits take pleasure in causing harm, and these ones find themselves drawn to Jack’s new home. Some of the more playful spirits even begin to mimic Jack, encouraging the spread of fun in other nearby towns.

Pitch begins to notice too, of course, but he still has the upper hand at night, and humanity still lives in fear even if they’re given a few brief respites of fun.

But Jack’s growing stronger. They may not be tooth fairies or yetis, but he has his own helpers now, and children are beginning to see him, if only out of the corner of their eyes. This is the heart of winter, Jack’s time, and even if his children don’t quite Believe yet, he can still give them more Fun than ever.

But the heart of winter means something else too, and Jack and his spirits still remember, even if the children have forgotten. Christmas is coming, but what does that mean anymore, when Nicholas St. North is just as missing as the rest of the Guardians? Jack wishes he could forget them just as easily as the children do, but, despite his anger, he knows now, more than ever, just how important they were.

But the Guardians are gone and the Moon is silent, and he doesn’t know what to do. So he does nothing.

Even without the Guardians, Belief is still increasing. The need to Believe is still there in the children, but now, with the void left by the Guardians, it’s being channelled in different ways. With the spiritual world recovering from the sudden loss of four major Believing powers, the minor spirits are being Believed in like never before. With all of the friendlier spirits around them, children are becoming more and more curious once again. Fear is slowly trickling away, almost too gradually for the Bogeyman to notice. And, one day, a little boy stumbles across a box of Christmas decorations in his attic. He looks, and he Wonders, and somewhere deep in the North Pole a faint little light flickers into being on a globe.

Belief in Christmas may not be quite the same as Belief in the man himself, but it’s better than no Belief at all, and one light is slowly joined by two, three, four.

Pitch is already losing control in this new world of his, and he knows it. Jack has been expecting him for some time, but he’s still caught unawares when the Nightmare King suddenly materialises behind him.

Pitch means to be reasonable, and make tempting offers to draw Jack to his side, but he’s spent so long alone and without the power to create strong alliances. The negotiation quickly falls apart to angry threats, and Pitch loses his upper hand. Because in this new world, there are at least two major spiritual powers left, but where Pitch consolidates his power alone and without allies, Jack has finally found the friends and supporters he’s been searching for all those years and pooled his power in with theirs. If it came to a fight, Pitch is no longer the most powerful spirit in the room, and they both know it.

The negotiations that day end without fight, but it’s clear that this is just the first of many battles to come between them. At their last meeting, Jack may have declared himself neutral, but his circumstances are very different now. With allies, territory and Believers, neutrality is a luxury he can no longer afford.

At their next meeting, they establish boundaries. Jack’s territory may be small, but if it’s his he’s going to fight for it, and that means keeping Pitch Fearlings out. In return, Jack will stop going out of his way to spread Fun in the world outside of his territory. Of course, Fun hardly needs Jack’s help to spread, but there’s little either of them can do about that. That night, there’s no Nightmare sand to be seen anywhere in Jack’s territory. He doesn’t believe it will last, but it’s a start.

And if, one day, a spirit believes they see a flicker of golden light out of the corner of their eye while on night-watch, well, it must be a reflection of some kind, though a reflection of what is anyone’s guess.

The humans are starting to notice, though, that life is better, quieter, safer in Jack’s territory. The population explodes, and he has no choice but to expand his territory.

Winter is beginning to draw to a close. Another new treaty is drawn up. Jack is already tired of them, but he knows Pitch isn’t willing to accept the alternative. His territory is allowed to grow, but in return, Pitch’s Nightmares roam his streets every new moon. It’s too little too late, but Pitch isn’t ready to hear that yet.

Anyone who had seen the old Jack, before Pitch’s return, would be amazed to see him now. While still a Fun-loving trickster at heart, but a darker world and greater responsibility in it forced him to think things through more than he ever had before. To the children, he’s still fun and games, their guardian and protector. To the spirits, though, he’s become something of a leader, and this didn’t come without side effects. No more spur-of-the-moment decisions, with little interest in the consequences – he has people to protect now, and that means taking advice and looking before he leaps, before he puts his own people in danger. And there’s the other thing – he gets advice now. There’s no need for him to rely on his own instincts and little experience anymore. Older and wiser spirits can tell him when he’s about to make a mess of things.

So the world keeps turning. Jack’s territory keeps growing, and Pitch’s Fear keeps losing strength, and they continue to make their treaties, for as long as Pitch refuses to accept the inevitable.

But then a new spirit appears on the radar. Though she’s by no means newly created, until now she’s remained relatively minor, and the first anyone hears of her in the greater spiritual world is her declaration of territory. As it becomes clear that the humans in her territory have their own kind of protection against Pitch’s Fear – not the same as Jack’s, but apparently just as effective – spirits flock from his side to hers. Not all of them, of course, but still a significant number. As the water spirit’s territory expands nearer to Jack’s, he learns that her humans can be just as willing to sit and patiently wait out his trick and games as much as Pitch’s Nightmares. A new pact is drawn, outlining new boundaries, and something resembling a freedom-of-movement agreement is determined between them.

Pitch still won’t accept the inevitable.

But now the floodgates have opened. The world develops more and more pockets of freedom from Pitch’s Fear. Children have more to believe in these days than just a fear of the creatures in the night. Jack and Pitch are still the most powerful spirits out there, but slowly, slowly, other spirits are starting to catch up to them.

A little boy loses a tooth and finds it gone the next morning, though he doesn’t wonder much at its disappearance.

But the Nightmare King is determined to make one final stand. Once he dreamed of a world under his control, a world of fear and darkness. Well, the world has told him no enough times now for him to get the message. But if the world wants to live without his Fear, he’s hardly going to make it easy for them. He’s going to fight.

And to his surprise, he’s not fighting alone. Because Jack Frost may have initiated this development of spiritual nations, but these spirits have grown in a world of Fear as much as Fun, and there are more than just the creatures of the night who would prefer to see Pitch still in power.

Jack stands with the rest of the spirits, and prepares for war. He’s not running away this time.

All bets are off now. Any spirit is either an ally or an enemy, and if they’re an enemy, any treaties or alliances with them can be considered null and void. Patrols on the streets are ramped up, but humanity still experiences fear like they haven’t felt in years, since Jack’s return.

The fighting drags on, and on, and on. Neither side gains the upper hand for a long, long time, and it seems unlikely that any treaty can fix this mess now.

But this can’t last, of course. The children are growing up. Belief is being passed down generations, and the new major powers are gaining the kinds of strength that can only be acquired from unsubstantiated faith. And, when all is said and done, any child is going to be drawn more to the Belief that gives them Hope than the Belief that gives them Fear – it’s in their natures.

That Spring, a child stumbles across a strangely colourful orb in the grass.

Pitch and his allies lose the war, but aren’t defeated. Because this isn’t the era of the Guardians, this is a New Age, and the spirits of this time worked out a long time ago what Pitch is only just beginning to understand. Fear is important. Fear creates balance. And, in the right quantities, fear protects children. But that’s the key thing – in the right quantities. Because Fear can’t overwhelm everything else. It has its own time and place, the same as the rest.

A compromise is offered. Pitch, caught by surprise, accepts. He’s given his own people to protect, and his own time in which Fear can be encouraged. It’s certainly more than the Guardians would have ever condescended to give him. He tells himself that this is his chance, that he’ll go along with it for now, and catch them unawares once he’s stronger, and maybe he will someday, but for the moment he’s not entirely convinced. He’s not alone anymore, after all, and perhaps he’s a little tempted to see how this plays out.

So, for the first time since the rise of the spiritual world, the world has found a balance. The children still Fear, of course, but they also Play, and Doubt, and Cry, and Love, and with so much else going on, a little Fear isn’t really so bad, after all. The boundaries between territories are still there, officially, but if some spirits choose to roam where others choose to remain, well, that’s their choice. They certainly won’t be stopped from crossing any borders, so long as they respect the basic rules and protect the children.

Because Pitch may no longer be a threat, but that doesn’t make the world safe now. Even excepting the horrors of the human world, there are plenty of spirits who prefer to harm rather than help. The creatures of the night may have had Pitch’s encouragement, but they certainly didn’t need it in order to roam the night. Of course, none of them have quite the levels of power wielded by the Bogeyman, but they’re still enough of a threat to keep the rest of the spirits on the watch.

Even Jack takes part in the occasional patrol, though he’d still rather be playing with the children. They may not need to see him to Believe in him, but even after all these years of Belief, it still reassures him to know that he can be seen.

When his first generation of Believers grow up and stop Believing, he finds himself travelling far, far to the North. He rages, and storms, and howls, and when he’s ready, he returns to greet the new generation.

It never gets easier.

When the next generation begin to move on, Pitch finds himself drawn to Jack and his fear, and they have their first real conversation since the Guardians’ Fall. It’s not quite friendship, not yet, but they come to a kind of understanding. Whatever is between them, it’s certainly not hatred anymore, in any case. But maybe it never really has been, if Jack thinks about it.

And as Jack thinks, he realises that he doesn’t hate the Guardians anymore either. He’s still angry that they thought so little of him, that they mistrusted him so much – he’ll never not be angry about that, he thinks – but that was a long time ago now. He’s moved on. And while he’s surrounded by people who care about him, he can honestly say that the Guardians aren’t that important to him. Maybe they could have been if things had gone differently, but they didn’t, and maybe Jack’s the better for it. The Guardians could never have created a world like this, but he did. Well, he helped. He doesn’t need the Guardians – he never has – and in accepting that, he can move on from the hurt and bitterness they caused him. So he does.

This, of course, is when he starts hearing the rumours.

At first, it’s only little things. Overhearing a boy who found a coin by his pillow in place of his lost tooth. Listening to a girl passionately describe a dream she’d had to her friends. But then it starts happening more and more often. Two siblings arguing the merits of Winter versus Spring. A child vehemently insisting to her mother that she simply must stay up to watch for fairies. Faint glimmers of golden sand out of the corner of his eye.

It’s only when he starts to hear other spirits talking that Jack believes this is more than just his imagination. He mentions it once to Pitch, but he’s already decided to dismiss the rumours. It would be so much easier for Pitch, after all, if the Guardians were to stay gone. When the alternative risks destroying his tentative new peace with the world, it’s a lot simpler to rationalise it as old, not-yet-forgotten tales, or parental interventions. A few years ago, Jack might have been surprised that Pitch didn’t already know the answer for sure, about the Guardians’ whereabouts. He’s never felt the need to ask about the Fall of the Guardians, but, all the same, he knows their disappearance wasn’t quite as simple as that. Pitch may have been trying to make them disappear, but he didn’t know any better than the rest of them where they had actually disappeared to. Jack is barely surprised at Pitch’s unwillingness to know either, but for his own part, he can’t seem to let it go quite so easily, and, in a moment of impulsiveness, he sets off for the North Pole.

He’d returned there once before, a few years after his return from self-imposed isolation. Rumours had abounded as to the whereabouts of the Guardians – assuming they weren’t gone altogether – and Jack had just started to realise how important the Guardians had really been to the spiritual world. He was still angry with them in those days, but there was a part of him that was guilty too. He was, after all, part of the reason they had been weak enough for Pitch to defeat them. So, in a moment of madness, he’d headed for the North Pole. He hadn’t thought, back then, about what he’d do if he found the Guardians, but he hadn’t needed to in the end. The place had been abandoned.

And as Jack looks around now, it still seems to be that way. For a moment, he almost finds himself missing the friendly, bright atmosphere of the busy workshop. But only for a moment.

He’s almost completely lost in the maze of corridors before he hears it. A distant booming laugh. He barely stops himself running down the corridors after it. As he gets closer, murmurs begin to join the first booming voice, and then he can make out their individual voices in the chatter. But then he freezes just outside the door. Just like before, he hasn’t thought about what happens now – he just knew that he needed to know for sure. Well, he does know now. There’s no reason why he can’t just leave again.

The conversation cuts off suddenly and the door bursts open.

It’s too late to run now. So instead Jack ignores the stares of the Guardians and enters the room, shutting the door behind him.

They hadn’t expected him to be the one on the other side of the door – that much is clear – but they don’t show as much hostility towards him as he expected. Of course, they initially accuse him of spying for Pitch, and clearly doubt his denials, but information is so scarce for them this far north that they don’t care who they get it from.

At first, they’re sceptical of his story – his new world goes against every rule they know, after all – but Jack suddenly finds he hasn’t let go of as much of his resentment as he’d thought. In his frustration, years of pent-up rage are thrown at the Guardians, and their shock at his outburst gives him the opportunity he needs to make them shut up and listen.

And so, he tells them everything they missed in the decades they’ve been gone. As he starts to reach the end of his story, he can see them growing concerned, but this time they stay silent and wait for him to finish.

It’s only when he’s done that they try to convince him that he’s wrong and they’re right. Pitch can’t be trusted with power, any power, never ever, they tell him.

But Jack’s had enough. If they aren’t ready to listen, that’s not his problem anymore. Because he’s tried to tell them, tried to explain just how different things are now. The Guardians themselves may exist, but the need for them doesn’t, and their role as leaders in the spiritual world certainly doesn’t. They’ve been gone too long at just the wrong time. The world’s learned to cope without them now, and it doesn’t want the Guardians anymore.

Before he leaves, though, he makes them a promise. Because he’s changed too, and he doesn’t run away when people need him anymore, or put his own wants first. So he makes them a promise, that, despite their past, if they should ever need his help, all they have to do is ask.

Then he leaves, and he doesn’t look back.

He goes back home, greets his people, plays with his Believers. The world keeps on spinning.

He tells Pitch what he found at the North Pole, but nobody else even thinks to ask, and before long, they don’t need to. Maybe they regain just enough Believers, or maybe it’s because of Jack’s visit, but the once-Guardians are starting to be seen again. For a little while, it’s all any of the other spirits can talk about, but Jack finds that he just doesn’t care. He greets them if he encounters any of them, same as he would for any other spirit, but their interactions don’t go much beyond this, and that’s fine by him.

This is Jack’s world now: he’s not the friendly spirit of Burgess, not a Guardian, not one of the Nightmare King’s greatest enemies.

This is what he has: a home, Believers, friends, a family of spirits who have stuck with him through thick and thin. He’ll never feel lonely again. This is enough.


End file.
